Unfortunately, we ran up into some weird problems with the gameplay style of the game - the freedom of controls and movement was completely antithetical to making a puzzle platformer. Puzzle games thrive on restrictions but to make a puzzle game revolving around such a powerful movement toolset, we ended up creating a lot of restrictive corridor level design (which you can see in the demo). We were really fighting ourselves in a lot of ways.

I mean, what we had wasn't bad! That demo is a cool little prototype that stands alone and doesn't outstay its welcome. But we pretty much hit the barrier of what we could do with the level design without becoming extremely repetitive (once again it was already starting to become just a little monotonous even in the demo).

We spent another year and a half or so trying to figure out a design that worked before giving up.

However, I can definitely say that we still fully intend to make a Launchman game eventually - even if it's not the same game. We've ALWAYS wanted to make a multitude of Launchman games with differing playstyles anyway - we have tons of wildly different ideas about what a launch mechanic could be in different contexts.

Speaking for myself and not in the official context of being a The Layabouts representative: I've always personally thought that the freedom of movement and gameplay concepts of the old version of HCL could be used in a straightforward, non-puzzle platformer. Joe and I both have had some interesting ideas about making a straight-up Launchman puzzle game as well.

So, despite us not working on anything Launchman right at the moment, never say never.